Canelo vacates WBC title to have more time to negotiate Golovkin fight

By Boxing News - 05/18/2016 - Comments

Image: Canelo vacates WBC title to have more time to negotiate Golovkin fightBy Dan Ambrose: In a statement released moments ago, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez announced that he’s vacating his WBC middleweight title so that he can have more time to negotiate a fight against interim WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin without the fast approaching deadline that the World Boxing Council had put in place before a scheduled May 24 purse bid.

Canelo says he’s still interested in negotiating the fight with Golovkin. He just doesn’t want the pressure from the WBC in their purse bid. The question now is whether Canelo was serious about still wanting to negotiate the fight with Golovkin. The fact that Canelo gave up the WBC title without asking for an extension is an odd one because the WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman surely would have given Canelo an extension if he had asked for it.

By giving up the WBC title without a fight, Canelo makes a fight between him and Golovkin not as interesting because it won’t have the WBC title on the line unless the WBC automatically gives the belt to Golovkin. I don’t think they’ll do that. The WBC will likely make it vacant for Canelo and Golovkin to fight over.

“After much consideration, today, I instructed my team at Golden Boy Promotions to continue negotiating a fight with Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and to finalize a deal as quickly as possible,” said Canelo. “I also informed the WBC that I will vacate its title. For the entirety of my career, I have taken the fights that no one wanted because I fear no man. Never has that been more true than today.”

It’s got to be a blow to the WBC to see a popular fighter like Canelo drop their belt like this, because all those sanctioning fees he would have been bringing in to the company if he had held onto the title and defended it year after year. Now you’ve to wonder whether Canelo will ever fight for one of the WBC’s titles ever again.

Canelo says he doesn’t fear Golovkin, but a lot of boxing fans think he still does. The catch-weight fights that Canelo has been fighting in and his insistence that he’s still not a middleweight despite him weighing in the 170s suggest to some that he is afraid of the Kazakhstan fighter.

Fighting at the 155lb catch-weight against a welterweight in Amir Khan instead of a middleweight like Golovkin seems odd to some fans because it gives the appearance that Canelo is someone that must have an advantage over his opponents. It looks bad from the outside seeing a middleweight the size of Canelo fighting an over-matched welterweight in Khan.

With the WBC title no longer in Canelo’s possession, this is a good time for Golovkin and his promoters at K2 to scoop up the title if the WBC will let them. If it’s the belt that Golovkin wants most of all, he can possibly take the WBC title now and then move on towards the last remaining piece in the middleweight puzzle against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders.

Of course, I don’t think the WBC is going to just let Golovkin have their title, even though he clearly deserves it at this point given the fact that he’s been waiting for two years now to finally get his chance to fight for the belt. Golovkin has been the WBC mandatory challenger for two years and he should have been allowed to fight for the title by this time.

If the WBC is going to make Golovkin wait until he fights Canelo until he finally gets the WBC title, then it’s going to be another hoop that Golovkin will need to jump through.
“I will fight ‘GGG,’ and I will beat ‘GGG’ but I will not be forced into the ring by artificial deadlines,” said Canelo. “I am hopeful that by putting aside this ticking clock, the two teams can now negotiate this fight, and ‘GGG’ and I can get in the ring as soon as possible and give the fans the fight they want to see.”

You can’t blame the WBC for setting a deadline for the negotiations to the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. If they had just left it without a time limit, this thing could stretch out indefinitely. It’s not as if Golovkin hasn’t already been waiting for ages. He was supposed to get a crack at the WBC title last year, but instead we saw the former WBC champion Miguel Cotto fight Canelo last November. Golovkin was then supposed to get the fight against the winner of the Canelo vs. Cotto fight.

Instead of that happening, Canelo was allowed to fight an interim title defense against welterweight Amir Khan. On top of that, there was talk of Canelo and Golovkin taking two to three additional interim fights before facing each other. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler took to Twitter saying that there will be no additional interim fights before Golovkin fights for the WBC title. Now we’re hearing from Canelo saying he’s vacating his WBC title. What are we to think? It seems to me that we could see Canelo go in another direction rather than take the fight with Golovkin.

“He is eager to get in the ring with ‘GGG’ to show the world that he is also the best pound for pound fighter in the sport, but we won’t negotiate under a forced deadline,” said De La Hoya. “Now that the WBC title is off the table, I am hopeful that ‘GGG’ and his promoter K2 Promotions will come to the table in good faith and get this deal done.”

We’ll see if Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions are serious about wanting to make the Golovkin fight or not. If two or three months go by and the fight still isn’t made, then I think it’s safe to say we probably won’t be seeing the two fighters face each other.

Loeffler should have a drop dead date to the negotiations with Canelo so that the 34-year-old doesn’t wind up waiting for ages because he can’t afford to throw away time in his career because he’s not young like the 25-year-old Canelo.